


don't leave me here alone

by starstrung



Category: The Bright Sessions (Podcast)
Genre: Cuddling, Dubious Consent, M/M, Road Trips
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-16
Updated: 2018-07-16
Packaged: 2019-06-11 04:57:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15307983
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starstrung/pseuds/starstrung
Summary: Mark’s iPod is probably in a plastic baggie in some AM storage facility. God, he’s going to have to dig up so many live performance Broadway bootlegs again.





	don't leave me here alone

**Author's Note:**

> This fic takes place while Damien still has power over Mark, as well as after Mark manages to take control. Because of that, there are issues of consent. Proceed with caution.
> 
> Thanks for all the enabling, [Kathy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/anaeolist), now send me to jail like I asked.

The first week out of the facility is the hardest. They’re staying at yet another motel, and Damien is having Mark walk down the hallway, to exercise his legs. They still feel like jelly when Mark puts any weight on them, but already he can feel himself getting stronger.

He couldn’t do it, any of it, without Damien. He is so patient with Mark, even though Mark can tell that Damien wishes he was recovering faster. Feeling that, Mark tries to push himself. He goes as far as he can down the motel hallway before he collapses.

“Hey, you’re getting stronger,” Damien says, sounding pleased. In turn, it fills Mark with a happy glow, even though Damien has to basically carry him back to their room. Damien is happy with him.

These days Mark’s thoughts seem filled with haze. There’s just a distant memory of 1810, of Sam holding his hands in a deep blue lake, of her scared, beautiful face. 

Mark is not sure how much of it was real. Damien’s hold on him is the only thing with any clear definition. It’s the only thing Mark can trust.

Damien helps Mark eat soup he got from the Chinese joint across the street. Mark’s hands are shaking too much to hold a spoon, so Damien has to do it for him. 

Mark thinks he would have liked to go to bed — he’s overexerted himself today. But Damien wants to watch TV instead. Mark is too exhausted to do anything but lean into Damien. He can feel Damien stiffen from surprise, but he lets Mark stay, lets him rest his head on Damien’s shoulder. It’s been so long since Mark has been touched by another person, someone solid and warm.

That first week, the nightmares come every night.

He wakes up thrashing. The taste of blood is in his mouth, the feeling of needles in his eyes. He dreamed of Joan being dragged away. She was his last hope in that place. He knew she’d come for him. He knew she’d find him. 

But she hadn’t been the one to save him, in the end. It was Damien.

Mark doesn’t realize he’s shouting until Damien stifles him with his hand. Damien is covering Mark’s entire body with his own, and as Mark comes to, he realizes that it’s probably the only thing that kept him from throwing himself off the bed.

“Jesus Christ, Mark, calm the fuck down,” Damien hisses at him.

As soon as Mark is fully conscious, he feels Damien soothing him. It drags him down from his terror, and he goes limp, Damien’s weight crushing him. They’re both breathing raggedly.

“Fuck,” Damien says, pushing himself up. He’s looking down at Mark’s palms. They’re bleeding. Crescent shaped marks from where his fingernails must have dug in.

“Lucky that wasn’t my arm,” Damien says dryly, but he gets a wet washcloth from the bathroom, gently cleans Mark’s hands of blood. 

“Thanks,” Mark says, shakily.

Damien nods tightly, like he’s embarrassed. When he gets up to throw away the bloody cloth, Mark notices that he looks a little flushed. Mark gets the sense that this is the first time Damien has taken care of someone like this.

“You’ve never had a dream that violent,” Damien says when he comes back. Mark can feel his curiosity.

“I don’t want to talk about it. Can we just—” Damien doesn’t let him. Mark takes a deep breath, and tells him as much as he can.

Mark talks until he can’t anymore, until the memory of it makes him break down into sobs. This time when Mark leans into him, Damien holds his shoulders. It’s a relief not to have to look at Damien right now. It’s a relief that Damien doesn’t want him to continue talking.

“You’re out of there now. Without me, you’d still be breathing out of a tube, remember?” Damien says. His hand brushes through Mark’s hair, hesitant.

“I know,” Mark says. He turns his face into Damien’s shoulder. He feels Damien’s breathing hitch.

Mark feels safe here, protected. It’s what Damien wants.

  
  
  


Mark manages to break free eventually, even manages to turn Damien’s power back on him. A part of Mark, though, still misses that feeling of safety.

  
  


 

_ Three months later. _

They’re somewhere in Arizona. This far away from any major city, the open road is its own alternate dimension. It feels just as endless as 1810. They’ve passed the same fast food signs, the same squashed up houses, the same lonely ranches, the same grazing cows. Everything here feels like if he got out of the car and passed his hand through it, he’d just touch thin air.

Mark is sick of the endless driving, sick of the same songs played on all the top 40 radio stations no matter how many county lines they cross. He’s heard the same Rihanna song more times than he can count, and while he’s glad that she’s still putting out great music and that not everything changed during the two years he was in 1810, he’s really starting to miss his own music library. 

Mark's iPod is probably in a plastic baggie in some AM storage facility. God, he’s going to have to dig up so many live performance Broadway bootlegs again.

“You don’t have any good music on your phone, do you?” Mark says to Damien. It’s the first thing he’s said to him in eighty miles. Damien has been sitting quiet, well-behaved, like he’s in a trance. It’s what Mark wants him to do.

“I don’t have any,” Damien says. There’s a high note of panic in his voice — Mark recognizes it as what happens when Damien can’t give Mark what he wants. “Do you — do you want me to find you some, or—”.

“Forget it,” Mark says quickly. He easily forgets how charged an innocuous question can become if he puts enough want behind it. Mark is on edge, sick of his own thoughts. He misses other people. Maybe it’s time to take a break.

“Burgers sound good for lunch?” Mark asks, carefully. He tries not to put too much weight behind it. Maybe if he keeps himself neutral, his power won’t influence how Damien behaves. It’s like balancing on a wire, even for something as simple as this.

It doesn’t work. Damien turns to look at him blankly. “Is that what you want?” he asks. His voice is flat, lifeless. With his power, Mark can feel Damien’s will, his desires. It’s like they’re lying dormant under fifty feet of glass.

“Yeah, it is,” Mark says, although right now he feels so much disgust that he’s not even sure he’ll be able to eat.

They pull over to a Burger King. Mark manages to eat a burger and some fries. When Damien doesn’t touch his food, Mark makes him eat his too. Damien doesn’t fight him. Mark has to look away rather than watch the forced, mechanical way Damien eats his food.

It was different in the beginning. The euphoria of finally being free from Damien, being able to leave, to do what he wanted. But having this power feels like it’s slowly eating him from the inside out. He hates seeing Damien like this, but at the same time, a part of him revels in it. 

“You keep wanting me to fight back,” Damien says, startling Mark out of his thoughts. He hadn’t realized that Damien was done eating. “But I can’t. You’re not letting me. So stop wanting it.”

Mark can see the strain it takes Damien just to say those words.

“I don’t — I don’t want you to be like this,” Mark says, gesturing.

“What, broken?” Damien says, an awful smile stretching his face. Too many teeth, too much hate. It immediately disappears, probably because Mark wanted to stop seeing it. “Newsflash, Mark. You broke me.”

“My sister will fix you,” Mark says, with a conviction he’s finding harder to believe. Mark was broken, pulled apart so many times by the AM that his mind literally got corrupted permanently by his own power and trapped him in a permanent hallucination. Somehow he’s passed that same corruption onto Damien. 

It doesn’t feel like the kind of broken that even Joanie can fix. It feels contagious.

Damien snorts in disbelief. “Like she would help me.”

“Maybe you should have thought of that before you betrayed her,” Mark says, too tired of this argument to put any heat into it.

Damien shrugs, remorseless as ever. No matter how many times Mark has wanted him to take responsibility for all the fucked up things he’s done, he’s never gotten farther than meaningless apologies. No matter how strong this power is, it can’t manufacture a conscience.

“I can feel you not wanting to go back, you know,” Damien says. “Every time you bring up your sister. You don’t want to see her.”

“Of course I want to see her,” Mark snaps, but a part of him hesitates nonetheless. He hates that this power goes both ways. He doesn’t remember Damien’s desires bleeding through this much. His control must have been better than Mark’s. It makes sense. Damien has had this power for a lot longer than he has.

Damien doesn’t look convinced. “Guess she’s not the perfect sister you keep saying she is.” He’s enjoying this.

“Don’t talk about her like that,” Mark tells him. He should just stop Damien from talking instead of rising to his taunts, but he doesn’t want him to go back to what he was like in the van. “You tormented her into hating you. You deserve everything she did to you.”

Damien looks at Mark like he’s amused about something. “You know what she said when she asked me to save you?”

“What?” Mark asks, wary.

“That I was her friend. Her closest friend,” Damien says.

Of all the things Mark expected to hear, that was not it. He stares at Damien in shock for a moment, but Damien doesn’t seem to notice. He’s telling the truth, Mark realizes. He’s never seen Damien smile that way, that warm expression.

“Even if she said that to you back then,” Mark says, recovering, “you know that’s got to have changed since you fucking kidnapped her brother, right?”

Damien doesn’t look concerned. “I don’t know, Mark. Who of us here actually knows her better? Me, or you?”

  
  
  


Back on the road, Damien is silent again, but Mark can feel his smugness somehow fighting its way through the trance. He hates that he let Damien into his head even when the power was turned the other way. 

It’s not fair. Not like anything that has happened to him for the last two years of his life have been fair. At this point, his luck is starting to look comically bad.

So of course the van decides to break down forty miles out from the nearest gas station.

Mark swears, pulling over as best as he can. He opens the hood and stares blankly at the smoking mess. He has no idea how to fix an engine.

And of course there’s no fucking cell service.

“Fuck,” Mark says pacing around. They’re in the middle of empty brushland, nothing in sight except the distant mountains. He can’t even see another car on the highway.

“Are you going to help, or what?” Mark asks Damien angrily, wrenching his door open.

“What do you want me to do?” Damien says. They both know that Mark doesn’t actually know the answer to that. Mark catches the hint of a smirk.

Mark can’t stand it anymore. “Okay, fine, get out, Damien.”

Damien obediently steps out of the van, squinting at Mark in the bright sunlight. “Now what?” he says. He’s gone passive again, lifeless. Just waiting for the next command. It’s like he can tell how much Mark hates it, but of course the more that Mark tries to get him to do what he wants, the more cowed Damien gets. 

It’s a losing battle that Mark hasn’t figured out the rules for yet. He goes for brute force instead, concentrating on the power to try and get a reaction — any reaction — from Damien.

“I already told you I can’t fight back, Mark,” Damien says, sharply. “Stop doing that.”

“Does it hurt when I do that?” Mark asks. He feels angry, savage with it. It feels right to take it out on Damien like this.

Damien has his teeth gritted together. “It feels — weird. Like you’re asking me to push against a mountain.”

“Come on. I know you can do it,” Mark says, not letting up. Damien’s chest begins to heave, like he can’t catch his breath.

“Mark, I’m serious.” Damien’s voice sounds strained. 

Mark can feel his will, now. Damien doesn’t feel as passive anymore, like he’s trying to throw his weight against Mark’s power. Mark loves it, doesn’t care that they’re both shaking, that they’re standing on an empty highway in the middle of fuck knows where, that they don’t even have food or water on them. 

This is the first time in three months that Mark has felt strong. Like something in him works after all, even if it’s something ugly and twisted.

That’s when Damien lets out an angry snarl and throws himself at Mark. They both fall to the hard-packed earth, scrabbling over each other and sending up clouds of dust. Damien kicks Mark in the stomach. In retaliation, Mark grabs Damien by the shirt and punches him in the nose. All Damien can do is try to dig his fingernails into Mark’s face before Mark moves out of range.

“All right, enough,” Mark yells.

When the dust settles, Mark is pinning Damien to the ground. Damien’s nose is bleeding sluggishly. Damien wipes at it with his sleeve, leaving a smear of blood and dirt.

“Are you happy now?” Damien says angrily.

Mark just feels tired. “No, I— no, that was stupid. Fuck, that was stupid of me. Are you okay?” he asks.

“Just get off me, okay?” Damien says. He sounds agitated, and Mark worries for a second that he might have actually gotten hurt — and then he feels Damien getting hard against his thigh.

They both see the moment in each other’s faces when they realize.

“If you don’t want it, then it’ll stop,” Damien says. “Just use your power.” There is almost a pleading note in his voice as he asks Mark to literally will his reaction away. Damien’s hips are starting to make tiny involuntary movements against Mark’s thigh.

Mark feels like he just took a blow to the head. There’s a buzzing noise, like his brain is throwing off alarms. Beneath him, Damien is panting, his eyes looking feverish and wild. The blood on his face makes him look almost fragile. 

“This is what you want though?” Mark asks. He slowly rolls his thigh between Damien’s legs, just the slightest pressure.

Damien throws his head back against the ground and groans. “Yes,” he says, compelled to honesty.

Well, fuck. Mark drags them both to their feet, manhandles Damien back to the van by the collar of his shirt.

He throws open the back doors of the van and pushes Damien inside. There are no extra seats in the van other than the front two — the rest have been removed. There are stolen hotel blankets laid out across the floor from when Mark was too weak to do anything but sleep in the back while Damien drove. Damien falls back across these, too stunned to do anything else. Or maybe it’s because this is where Mark wants him.

“You — you want this too?” Damien says, looking dazed, hungry. Damien puts his hand over Mark’s where it’s still twisted into Damien’s shirt, and squeezes Mark’s fingers, like he’s afraid that Mark will let go.

Mark doesn’t answer. He doesn’t have to, because his power projects it anyway. He sees revelation cross Damien’s face, and wonders at the kinds of desires that Damien is feeling from him. If Damien can feel how much Mark wants to fuck him in the back of this van, right here. Damien’s eyes are wide.

“Holy shit, Mark,” Damien says, voice just a low reverent gasp. Mark can feel him wanting it too. He doesn’t know if that’s just his power. He realizes that he’s going to go through with this anyway, and the shame of it mixes with everything else that’s fucking up his brain right now.

“Stop talking,” Mark says, and uses the hand he has fisted in Damien’s shirt to start undressing him.

When Mark has gotten Damien fully naked, he takes Damien’s dick in his hand, watching the way Damien’s entire body shudders with it. He already looks like a wreck, just from feeling Mark’s want, from knowing what Mark wants to do to him now. 

It doesn’t last long. Damien’s fingers are curling into the blankets, and he keeps choking off swears. Even when he comes, all Mark hears is a sharp exhale. After that, he lies there, gasping, his own mess pooled on his belly. Mark gets his own pants open, fucks into his own fist, getting off on the way Damien’s thighs are still trembling from the aftershocks of it. It isn’t long until he’s coming all over Damien too.

Mark zips himself up, wipes the sweat off his face. It’s starting to get hot inside the van, even though the day is cooling as evening comes in. He finds a stack of old take-out napkins and tosses them onto Damien’s chest.

He watches as Damien struggles to sit upright, and wipes himself off with the napkins. Every part of Mark is recoiling from the shame of what he’s done. He doesn’t know how he’s going to go back to Joan like this.

Because Damien was right. The truth is, Mark is scared of what will happen when he goes back to Joan. She’ll want him to pick up life where he left it off, but Mark doesn’t know if he can ever do that. The Mark before he was kidnapped by Damien, taken by the AM — he doesn’t remember how to be that Mark.

It’s a surprise when Damien comes up beside him, leans his weight into Mark’s side until Mark lets him settle against his chest. 

He remembers those early days under Damien’s power, the way Mark would go into Damien’s arms after a nightmare, let Damien hold him through it until they fell asleep again. He wonders if this is an aftereffect of the power.

“God, what did I do to you,” Mark says. Damien’s hair has grown longer than usual, almost brushing his shoulders. Mark combs his fingers through it idly, thinks that he should probably cut Damien’s hair soon, or at least get him some hair ties.

“You aren’t that powerful, Mark. I want this to happen,” Damien says, snorting. After a pause, he seems to realize what he’s just said, and lets out a frustrated groan. “Why the fuck do you keep wanting me to say the truth,” he says, turning his head so that it gets muffled into Mark’s shoulder.

Mark can’t help but laugh. “Maybe because you lie literally all the time? It’s good to hear you tell the truth for once.” He hates that it comes out sounding fond.

“Whatever,” Damien says, grumbling. Then, “I’m in love with you.”

Mark doesn’t breathe for a long time. He pushes Damien off of him so that he can see his face. There’s a raw, ugly hope there in Damien’s expression, and the sight of it is unbearable. Mark turns away from it.

“You don’t, do you,” Damien says. His voice is toneless. He already knows the truth.

“No,” Mark answers. There’s a moment of silence as he gathers himself. “Get dressed,” he tells Damien. “We should try to hitch a ride to the nearest town before it gets dark.”

He gets out of the van. For a moment, he thinks about walking away, leaving Damien here and never seeing him again. But he remembers the terror in Damien’s voice when he asked Mark not to leave him. He can’t do that to Damien. Mark knows what it feels like to feel abandoned by everyone he knows, by his own family.

They’ll get home. They’ll find Joan, and she’ll fix this. She has to.

He just doesn’t know which one of them needs her help more.

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on tumblr @ starstrung!


End file.
